I’ve been MIA, I admit it.

November 18, 2008

But I’ve been busy! Really, really, busy.

I was in the middle of marking a quilt and had another idea pop into my head so that took over. It’s fine though, I lost interest in the other quilt half way through marking, which is why this quilt will have minimal marking. I’m determinded to have most of it be applique and just a few well placed quilting motifs because I’m so bored of marking my quilts.

Anyway, here it is.

I know, you’re looking at that and thinking “What the hell happened with him! He can barely piece a straight seam!”

That’s totally true, but this whole quilt is piecelique, which i can do. I made about 40 samples to make sure i could handle the curves and I’ve got them down! The miters and inset pieces are a little tricky, but where things don’t line up they’ll be applique anyway. It’s very venetian carnival, hindu art, sari and mendhi inspired. It doesn’t look it now, but it will. I’ve been designing like crazy in Illustrator today to make all my applique with lots of celtic inspired curls and swirls.

It seems like a lot of different influences in one quilt, but that’s how creativity works. I was looking at venetian carnival costumes and got an idea for applique, my background fillers are mendhi inspired and the celtic bits are to add interest and breaks between the borders. I’m really excited about it, I think it’s going to be great once it’s done.

It’s all my own hand dyed fabric, which I used a new base fabric for. It’s a sand washed cotton broadcloth, so it looks AND feels like suede. It’s the most fantastic fabric I’ve ever used and it came in a 60 wide roll so it was very economical for these pieces.

So that’s it, that’s what I’ve been up to. I hope to actually get it sewn together this week and then I can get started on the applique

You are evolving right before our eyes! Your style is changing with your piecing ability improving. You are making some dramatic statement quilts now. I see great quilts coming from you. Absolutely wonderful! Bravo! TFS

What are you talking about – the seams look fabulous! I surfed into your blog courtesy Caron Mosey at http://blog.caronmosey.com/. I could spend hours looking at other peoples artwork/quilts. The quilting in your header is stunning!! Did you do that with a regular machine or a longarm? Did you use a stitch regulator? Was it freemotion? I would love to know how I can become that adept at quilting. Thanks for the inspiration, and keep quilting!